“Alas! Mamma? And daily bread?”
“If you did not leave your mother. If you need no longer worry about your life?”
She looked at him, not daring to question him, not betraying the direction of her thoughts except by a trembling that she could not control in spite of her efforts.
“I mean if you become my wife.”
“Oh, my beloved!”
“Will you not?”
She threw herself in his arms, fainting; but after a moment she recovered.
“Alas! It is impossible,” she murmured.
“Why impossible?”
“Do not ask me; do not oblige me to say it.”